This e-Guide is the third in our series of guides on how you can use Emotional
Intelligence to help you be more effective and efficient, get better results, feel more
satisfied and improve your wellbeing.
Each guide will tackle a different common challenge at work and will give you a
practical and easy to follow guide to overcome it.
How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Overcome Presentation Nerves
When I was just 18 I presented a promotional video for Southampton University. It was a
great experience and set me on the path towards earning my living as a presenter, then
trainer and coach. My early career as a presenter was varied; I worked at Disneyland
Resort Paris, the Millennium Dome and for the BBC Experience. I’ve presented to groups
of 4 and 1400 and everything in between, on all sorts of topics. Now, I keep up the practise
with talks for a charity I volunteer with, at networking and marketing events and at our
Yellow Tree Retreats.
As a trainer I’ve delivered hundreds of presentation skills and public speaking courses all
over Europe. I’ve seen how nervous people can become just at the mere mention of
possibly delivering a presentation at some time in the future. It’s estimated that around
75% of the population suffer from glossophobia (the fear of public speaking) making it
one of the most common phobias. Many people will do whatever they can to avoid
delivering presentations or when they do present the nerves take over and affect their
performance. This in turn reinforces their anxiety as well as damaging their reputation.
Poor presentations can significantly damage ones career as the ability to present well has
become an important and often required skill in business. If you work for yourself you’ll
need to deliver short pitches at networking events. If you are an engineer you’ll be required
to deliver status reports to your team. If you’re a customer service manager you’ll be
asked to present updates and reports to the senior team. In almost any role in any
company (or at the interview to get the role) you will at some point be asked to present
or speak in public.
You might be thinking that with all the practise I’ve had I couldn’t possibly have been
nervous. But I was and I sometimes still get nervous now. All this experience has taught
me that nerves can be useful, can even make you perform better but they need to be
managed. It’s not the nerves themselves that cause the issues, more the symptoms we
experience as a result; the shaky voice, the racing heart, the mind going blank... If we
can manage these symptoms, and importantly what’s causing us to feel them, then we
can take control of our nerves and get the best from them.
It’s estimated that around 75% of the
population suffer from some level of
glossophobia – the fear of public speaking
So, what is Emotional Intelligence and how can it help you to overcome your presentation
nerves?
According to the originators of the theory, Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey, the ability based
approach to Emotional Intelligence is “the ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion
to facilitate thought, understand emotions and to regulate emotions to promote personal
growth”. Dr. Susan David (www.evidencebasedpsychology.com) adapted this to the easy
to remember RUUM™ model that I use every day.
Working through these 4 stages will help you to move from awareness and insight to
practical and relevant strategies to combat presentation nerves.
Step 1 – Recognising
The first step is to recognise how you are feeling. Imagine your boss has asked you to
deliver a 20 minute presentation to the senior management team next week. How would
you feel? How do you feel just at the thought of it? Consider how strongly you feel this,
perhaps on a scale of 1-10. Common feelings you might experience would be anxiety or
worry (roughly 3-5 on the scale) which are mild forms of fear. It’s common to get that
slight butterfly feeling in your stomach but if the fear is stronger it can have more of an
impact on your performance and be harder to manage.
Fear occurs when we feel threatened and prompts the flight, fight or freeze response. This
response is our body’s way of protecting us from danger; preparing us psychologically and
physically and releasing hormones to help us deal with the threat. This is very helpful if
the threat is for example, being mugged. The body’s responses would help us to react
quickly and be equipped to fight or run if necessary. Sadly fighting or running is not so
helpful when our boss asks us to deliver a presentation to the board.
It’s this physiological response that causes many of the unpleasant symptoms we
experience when we feel nervous such as the racing heart, shaking and forgetting what
we wanted to say. So once we’ve identified how we are feeling we can then start to deal
with it and its effects.
Step 2 – Using
Identify how your feeling is affecting your thinking. When I speak to people on my courses
about their presentation nerves they often say things like “I’m terrible at presenting” or “I
always forget everything I was going to say and go bright red”. These are examples of
how the emotion is affecting thinking. When we feel negative we are more likely to think
negative thoughts. Ask yourself how true these negative statements are. Do you really
“always forget everything” you meant to say? Or do you sometimes just stumble over your
introduction or get lost if you’ve put too many points on the slide? The latter two are
probably more indicative of what actually happens but we tend to over-use the words
“always” and “never” and so on. This makes us think the situation is worse than it really
is.
The diagram above shows the belief cycle. Our beliefs are made up of what we tell
ourselves; our thoughts and ideas about what we believe to be true. If we tell ourselves
that we are “bad at presenting” or that we are “just not confident” then that belief will
make us feel nervous, which in turn will affect how we behave which then impacts the
outcome. Eliminate the negative phrases, reframe this self-talk and make it positive
instead to get positive outcomes.
Beliefs can form out of past experience. For example you may have once delivered a
presentation which didn’t go so well and now every time you’re asked to present those
memories come flooding back. This encourages us to relive the same experience time after
time; the memories remind us of the feelings (and vice versa) so we say those negative
phrases and we get nervous and we have another bad experience. And so the cycle
continues.
If you’ve had a negative experience focus on the specifics - what exactly went wrong and
how can you improve this time? Eliminate the unhelpful language like “never” and “always”
from your self-talk and reframe it. Also think about what went well. What did you feel
comfortable and confident with? What did the audience respond well to? What do you know
you’re good at? (Such as making eye contact or answering questions) What can you do
again or make more of?
When it comes to using emotion it is also helpful to consider how helpful these thoughts
and feelings are. You may remember from previous guides that emotions can be helpful
and are necessary for us make good decisions. Personally I find that feeling a bit nervous
can help me to perform better; I am able to think on my feet and am more energetic and
engaging. The nerves remind me that what I am doing is important and that I need to
prepare. But it is important that these nerves are managed effectively for me to get the
best from them. If I am very nervous when I am preparing a presentation my creativity
will be impaired. If I don’t manage the nervous symptoms as I am presenting they will
confuse or detract from my message. The next 2 stages will help you to ensure you
manage the anxiety effectively.
Step 3 – Understanding
What are your personal
causes of emotions? What
is making you feel anxious?
At this stage ask yourself “What else am I feeling?”
Are you disappointed in yourself or annoyed at being
asked?
Are
you
feeling
self-conscious
or
embarrassed?
What has caused these feelings? Let’s say for example that you’re feeling worried. What
exactly are you worried about? Perhaps you are worried about the amount of time it will
take to put together. Or perhaps you’re anxious because you think everyone will expect
you to know all the answers. Maybe you feel self-conscious standing in front of everyone.
It’s really important that you reflect on and uncover the real cause of your emotion, once
you’ve done this you will be able to deal with it. For example if you’re worried about
standing in front of everyone you could ask if it’s ok to sit instead. Or you could identify a
friendly face in the audience and ask them to smile encouragingly. You could also remind
yourself that there’s nothing to be self-conscious about (positive self-talk!)
Next, consider how these feelings will progress over time. How will you feel if you miss
out on an opportunity to get your thoughts heard? How will you feel if you continue to not
practise? If feelings aren’t dealt with they get stronger over time. The nervousness won’t
disappear if you just avoid presentations, it will come back each time until you deal with
the anxiety.
Finally, how do you want to feel when asked to deliver a presentation?
Step 4 - Managing
Steps 1 – 3 should have helped you to uncover what it is you are really nervous about
exactly. Managing emotion is about achieving optimal emotional outcomes. It involves
taking a Meta view; looking at the situation objectively. Is this “normal” for you? How
often do you feel nervous about presenting? How about other people, how do they feel
about presenting? How do they deal with their nerves?
One thing to consider at this stage is whether you need a short-term or a long-term
strategy. Saying no and avoiding the presentation is a short term strategy. This may be
ok for now, as you’ll feel better for not having to do it. But it won’t solve the issue of
why you’re nervous or help you deal with the nerve symptoms. Especially because
practising is one of the best strategies for overcoming nerves.
There are also some short-term strategies you can use when you’re in the moment with
the presentation. For example 4 x 4 x 4 breathing is helpful while you’re waiting to present.
And if you find your pace is speeding up and you’re getting out of breath just pausing and
taking a deep breath before you continue can get you back on track. The audience won’t
even notice.
To really overcome presentation nerves however, you need a long-term strategy. Longterm strategies need to be Active (doing something about it) and Direct (directed at the
real issue e.g. the lack of time or self-consciousness). Because your individual cause of
the nerves will be individual to you, the strategy will be individual too. However there are
some common strategies that can be helpful for improving confidence with presenting:
Rehearsal – Make this as realistic as possible to get the real benefit. Always speak out
loud and if you’re going to be standing when presenting, stand when rehearsing. Try to
rehearse in the actual space and get some friends, family members or colleagues to stand
in for the audience.
Positive self-talk – Self-talk is very powerful, whether it’s positive or negative, it has the
power to shape our experience. In the weeks, days and hours leading up to the
presentation try to catch any negative self-talk and doubts; reframe them, eliminate those
unhelpful words and question the evidence for the belief. Finally replace them with positive
phrases and beliefs instead “I am great at answering the questions”, “I will be confident”
and so on.
Learn your introduction – This is especially helpful if you find that you get most nervous
at the beginning of the presentation and then warm up gradually. Learning your
introduction by rote ensures you can start confidently and grab attention for all the right
reasons. You’ll be able to deliver the key points clearly and concisely. This will give you a
confidence boost to continue in this positive vein.
Managing presentation nerves is possible and it can be done fairly easily and quickly if you
work through this model and use appropriate techniques. I’ve had clients start day 1 on a
course as nervous wrecks and by the time they finish on day 2 or 3 their confidence has
grown so much that they (almost) look forward to their next presentation! Remember- a
little nervousness can help just make sure you manage those butterflies.
I really hope you found this e-guide useful. If you’d like to find out your actual
level of Emotional Intelligence you can do so by taking the MSCEIT test. Just
contact me on the details below to book.
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Fiona Doran-Smith is an ILM Level 7
Executive Coach, an Emotional
Intelligence (EI) specialist qualified to
administer and interpret the MSCEIT
(EI test) and a qualified Trainer and
Facilitator. She’s specialised in the
field of personal development for
over 12 years and has substantial
experience helping organisations to
develop their people.
Fiona